At its heart, this latest episode of Ashes To Ashes was a solid hour of mid-story, with the crime of the week story surrounding a stand-up comedian. It wasn’t a bad crime story, to be fair, but not for the first time this series, it was these elements that made for the least interesting part of the episode. That said, with planted goods, falsified evidence and a flawed, quite tense set-up that hinged on a radio being stolen, it was still fine stuff. But we’re growing ever-impatient to find out more about the wider story. For the early part of the episode, it feels like a real throwback to Life On Mars, too. And that’s no surprise either, for this is the first time we really feel the two shows coming together. Putting Sam Tyler aside for a minute, the main catalyst for this is the return of Litton from Life On Mars, and it was great to see him. The banter and rivalry between Hunt and Litton has more of a feel of the older show than of Ashes To Ashes, and there’s clearly – as we discover for certain later in the episode – some history going on here that digs right into the foundations of what’s being going on across both Mars and Ashes. Where things really got interesting in the episode, though, was when it started to dig more into the ongoing Sam Tyler storyline. The catch-up at the start of the episode hinted it was coming, and then the montage of John Simm that soon followed brought the character very much to the fore. We didn’t get any more of him in person throughout the episode (even though after that montage we thought we were going to see more of him), but the name of Tyler was woven right through it. But then there were other elements to consider too. Gene Hunt, as has been obvious for some time, is hiding something here, and when he crowbars open Alex Drake’s drawer to nab the file on Tyler and start burning the evidence, alarm bells were blaring all over the place. Also, when he ultimately shot DI Bevan, you could argue that it had a similar effect, helping to suppress the truth about Tyler’s demise. It’s stating the obvious, but there’s clearly a major connection between Gene Hunt and the death of Tyler, yet we’re not being told what it is yet. Alex Drake seems to be getting closer too. She finds herself wanting to trust DCI Hunt, but his unwillingness to open up to her, and the titbits she finds out from DI Bevan, continue to send her suspicions off the scale. The divide between Hunt and Drake is looking like it’s widening, and given that it’s arguably the core relationship that powers the show, that’s clearly going to have ramifications. But are we nonetheless supposed to believe at the end that she’s finally having that chat with DCI Keats? That’s strongly implied, although it doesn’t necessarily strike us as something she would do. Given how low key Keats was in this episode – appearing really at the start and end – it was an intriguing place to stop. Elsewhere, there were stars to be seen. Quite literally, as it happens. We were wary going into the episode of a warning from show co-boss Matthew Graham when he spoke to us at the start of the series, when he said not to read too much into something Ray said in episode five. Yet, when Ray sees the sheet of stars, the same that Shaz has been talking about, it’s hard not to start speculating (we’re guessing it’s the astronaut line we’re not supposed to read too much into). What’s the significance of said stars? Are we looking at some Heaven and Hell thing going on here? Or are our theories simply getting worse by the week? Yet, the house of cards is beginning to tumble here, and across the next three episodes, we’re set to find out just how Sam Tyler met his maker, and just where Gene Hunt fits exactly into the grand scheme of things. You sense there’s a lot to wrap up, especially as the supporting characters around Gene Hunt appear to be growing in importance too. But we’d imagine that next week, in the midst of a prison riot, it seems, the pieces might start falling more and more into place. Read our review of episode 4 here.
